Electronic marketplaces, such as those available via the Internet, offer goods and services to customers. In contrast to many retail shopping experiences, customers of electronic marketplaces typically do not purchase items in person. Instead, customers may browse through electronic item descriptions, which may include textual descriptions of items as well as photographs or other electronic representations of a product of interest. In one example, item descriptions may be viewed as web pages on the Internet via a web browser. To purchase an item, a customer may engage in a checkout process whereby the electronic marketplace collects the requisite information for processing a transaction. Such information may include shipping and billing information for the customer as well as financial information, such as credit or bank information associated with an account from which funds for the purchase should be debited. Some checkout processes will provide the customer with one or more shipping options, such as regular shipping or expedited shipping. Such shipping options will typically allow a customer to select a shipping service that may purport to guarantee delivery of a purchased item by a certain date. Even in such cases, the degree of uncertainty as to when an item will actually arrive at a customer's designated shipping destination may result in an unfavorable shopping experience for the customer.
While the system and method for scheduled delivery of shipments with multiple shipment carriers is described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the system and method for scheduled delivery of shipments with multiple shipment carriers is not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the system and method for scheduled delivery of shipments with multiple shipment carriers to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the system and method for scheduled delivery of shipments with multiple shipment carriers as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.